"How Do You Study a Singer Who Doesn’t 'Exist'? The Case of Hatsune Miku", presented by Prof. Nick Prior

This lecture (in English) will be held Thursday, November 2 at 7:00 PM at Lakeland University in Shinjuku.

Hatsune Miku is the world’s first crowd-sourced celebrity, but she doesn’t exist - at least in terms commonly reserved for flesh-and-blood singers. Instead, she is a virtual avatar who performs ‘live' across the world, attracting a massive fan base and sparking heated debate about the fate of creativity and music in the digital age. For some she is a fad belonging to the banalities of an increasingly degraded culture, for others she represents nothing less than the future of the music industry. This talk will explore Miku as a new kind of multi-mediated object: an assembled artefact that emerges at the intersection of participatory cultures, corporate interests and simulationist technologies. Celebrating 10 years since her ‘birth', the talk will examine what it’s like to attend a Miku event, ask why audiences cry at her concerts and speculate on where she might go next.

Dr. Nick Prior is Senior Lecturer and former Head of Department in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. In 2017, he took up a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Tokyo of the Arts where he spent some time recording the electronic magnetic waves of Japanese vending machines! He is author of the forthcoming monograph, Popular Music, Digital Technology and Society (Sage, 2018), co-editor of the collection Digital Sociology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and co-editor of the journal Cultural Sociology. He is a part-time electronic musician and avid gamer.

For a map and directions to Lakeland's Shinjuku Campus, see our website:

http://luj.lakeland.edu/Campus-Life/lakeland-lectures

Lakeland Lectures are a forum for researchers, students and members of the public to discuss contemporary issues affecting Japan. Lakeland University has offered a U.S.-accredited liberal arts program in Tokyo since 1991. Lakeland's main campus is in Wisconsin, USA and was founded in 1862.
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Roger Grabowski, Jr.
Assistant Professor of General Studies
Lakeland University Japan